An area in the auto industry seeing tremendous change from past practices is the area of control and communication in automotive vehicles. The creation of relatively inexpensive microprocessors and the digital. revolution have put the power of advanced electronics and communication into the hands of automotive engineers. Controllers, microprocessors, and other electronic devices control and monitor various systems in a vehicle such as the transmission, the internal combustion engine, braking systems, and other related systems. The information stored on the controllers in the vehicle during some vehicle functions must be communicated between the controllers for operation of the vehicle systems. For example, the transmission controller may need engine speed information from the engine controller or braking information from the brake controller to properly shift a transmission apparatus.
Vehicle controllers typically include software separated into a logic section and a calibration section. The logic section includes the executable control methods of operation, and the calibration section generally includes constants and other variables used in the operation of the logic section, such as a table of shift schedules for a transmission. The calibration section may be modified to operate with different vehicles having different engine types and diverse performance and physical characteristics.
Traditional vehicle controllers are rigidly calibrated or pre-programmed for the types and amount of data that may be transferred for a particular vehicle platform. It would be advantageous to use a single calibration, for a vehicle controller controlling a specific automotive system such as a transmission controller, with multiple vehicle platforms.